NBER Working Papers and Publications

We analyze the economic determinants and effects of prior appropriation water rights that were voluntarily implemented across an immense area of the US West, abruptly replacing common-law riparian water rights. At the same time and place, vast private irrigation infrastructure added to the US capital stock. We build upon Ostrom and Gardner (1993) and model irrigation as a coordination problem to show how prior appropriation facilitated greater private infrastructure development than was possible under the baseline riparian system by i) securing access to water against future entry and ii) defining a property right that formed the basis for contracting around collective action problems among numerous, heterogeneous agents. We construct a dataset of 7,800 rights in Colorado, established betw...

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New NBER affiliates are appointed through a highly competitive process that begins with a call for nominations in January. Candidates are evaluated based on their research records and their capacity to contribute to the NBER's activities by program directors and steering committees. New affiliates must hold primary academic appointments in North America. On January 1, 2020, there were 1,581 NBER-affiliated researchers based at 180 institutions.